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Barcelona, Spain: The Beginning of our Journey

I’m currently sitting in my surprisingly nice hostel in Barcelona, Spain! It’s our last day here in this beautiful city and it has been a fun and exhausting visit. We’re currently at the Black Swan Hostel which I highly recommend to anyone coming to visit. Even though we’re in a ten person, female dorm, the hostel has been a really good place to both rest and make inexpensive food. Not to mention they made us cheap homemade paella, so good, and have many activities which are free including walking tours and pub crawls.

Speaking of Walking tours, today we went on one that showed us the three different Gaudi buildings throughout the city. Our guide was super knowledgeable about everything Gaudi and I now too, feel somewhat knowledgeable about the artist/architect. Fun fact, because the city declared his building more “works of arts” than actual buildings, he was able to bypass restrictions on elements like the height and volume of buildings and would boast about how he was so good the system just didn’t apply to him.

While we’re on the topic of Gaudi, Molly and I also visited La Sagrada Familia which was wow. A must visit upon coming to Barcelona. We literally just walked around the inside for over an hour just amazed. The colors from the stain glass windows are incredible and the tall ceilings and columns and walls and everything. I never knew I could love architecture so much. It was something I’m so glad I saw.

Last thing Gaudi related was the Park Guell. Although Molly and I didn’t actually pay to go inside, we did climb to the very top of the park which provided us with this fantastic view of the city. We also poked around the free areas soaking up all of the art we could while staring at the city laid out before us. An amazing city to be honest.

We also did some non-Gaudi related things like taking a walking tour of the Gothic district. This part of town is full of history and amazing sights to behold. This is the main Cathedral, free to go inside and gawk at. Amazing. This part of town is also home to parts of the Roman wall which have still survived, the art school Picasso went to, a square dedicated to George Orwell, and many more significant things that occupied our time.

And of course, you can’t come to Barcelona with out visiting the beach. What a better way to reboot than kicking it next to the Mediterranean Sea? Barcelona was everything I wanted and more. We had so much fun in this city and it’ll be kind of sad moving on to the next one tomorrow. But, I mean, the next one is Paris, so not too sad.